Coherent Coupling between Microwave and Optical Fields via Cold Atoms

We demonstrate a long-coherent-time coupling between microwave and optical fields through cold atomic ensembles. The phase information of the microwave field is stored in a coherent superposition state of a cold atomic ensemble and is then read out by two optical fields after 12 ms. A similar operation of mapping the phase of optical fields into a cold atomic ensemble and then retrieving by microwave is also demonstrated. These studies demonstrate that long-coherent-time cold atomic ensembles could resonantly couple with microwave and optical fields simultaneously, which paves the way for realizing high-efficiency, high-bandwidth, and noiseless atomic quantum converters.